December 7, 1941: a day that has lived in infamy. Now, thanks to the help of the Alabama Nursing Home Association and a Marine veteran, World War II buffs can get a better idea of what it was like to see the Japanese attack the U.S.S. Arizona.
96 year-old U.S Navy and Marine Corps Veteran Master Sergeant Thomas Davis saw a Japanese plane drop the first bomb on the USS Arizona in-person. On this 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Davis shared his experience in the video below.
“I watched the whole thing. It was something. I’m telling you, it was something I never want to see again,” Davis said. “I was on the boat deck and I saw the first Japanese plane come over. He came over and he dropped the bomb right down the stack of the Arizona and it just went apart. Sailors went this way, that way, all over. It was a mess.”
Davis joined the Navy at 19, and in his thirty years of military service he served in World War II, the Korean conflict, and the Vietnam War. Born in Lowndes County, he lived in Montgomery before moving to Bill Nichols State Veterans Home in Alexander City, Alabama.
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